Page 22 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

“Because you left!” I shout, silencing him as the angry words bounce around us and ricochet off the water.

“Because you left,” I repeat, voice lower and more controlled.

“And when you did that, you took everything with you, whether you knew it or not or meant to or not, you did it just the same. So stop the investigation , Officer , there’s your answer.

I am the way that I am because I gave everything away a long time ago and never got it back. ”

My heart slams beneath my ribs. He has the audacity to look ruined.

“I left because I thought you’d blame me,” he finally says.

“Because I blamed myself.” He’s close enough to me now that we could touch but don’t.

“Because I didn’t do enough to save Zeb.

Because I let him go into that house. Because—” He stops suddenly, as if there’s more, but he’s not ready.

The only sound I hear is my own blood rushing in my ears; the tension between us is strong enough to produce electricity.

“Because I thought you’ d be better off. ”

Despite the burn that blisters the space between my throat and chest, I force myself to look at him.

And he looks back. We stare at each other as the dock bounces like a ship lost at sea with whatever the water decides to do in a silence as heavy as our history.

When my eyes feel like they might burn out of their sockets, I blink away, forcing a deep breath, then another, his words invading every curve and corner of my body.

“Well you thought wrong,” I tell him.

I scan the shoreline to distract me. I count four boats. Seven roof peaks. A single cardinal, bright red as it floats through the air. I think of what Ford said earlier.

“You go to church?” I ask.

“Not since I was a kid,” he says, head tracking the movement of a nearby kayak.

“I once heard a preacher say that if you commit suicide, it’s a guaranteed one-way ticket to hell. You think that’s true for drug overdoses?”

He makes a thoughtful sound. “I think people like to pretend they understand God more than they actually do, and I think God sees people in a way we never will.”

His perspective makes it hard to not wrap my arms around him; I focus on the ripples of the water from a jumping fish.

“Remember swimming out here as a kid?” he asks.

A million memories of us on this lake flash at once. “Best days ever.”

“Zeb was always finding the highest thing to jump off.” Ford chuckles. “Can’t believe he didn’t die out here. ”

“I don’t know why you were ever his friend.” I can’t help but smile. “He was an idiot. Beginning to the end.”

“He was a good time.” Ford bumps me with his shoulder, the subtle movement enough to make the dock teeter. “And he had a pretty sister.”

A soft laugh builds in my chest, but I clear my throat to hide it. When I brave another look at him, there’s so much affection in his eyes it nearly pushes me into the water.

Too fast for me to react, he takes my hand in his. His blue eyes are so serious—so sincere—panic thrums through me. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my thumbnail.

He remembers.

It’s so beautifully simple it nearly brings me to my knees.

He pulls his lips from my thumb and rubs the tip of his nose against my nail before lowering our hands and pinching my thumb with his. “I want us to try.”

The sound that comes out of my mouth is something between an insane woman’s laugh and a pained woman’s cry.

I stare at our hands; his so big—so warm.

Wrong for mine. “Try what?” I ask, yanking my hand free.

“To be fuck buddies like we were in high school? Did you not listen to a damn thing I just said?”

His expression crashes, usually smiling eyes filling with hurt. “That’s not what we were, and you know it.”

My skin wraps around my bones like heat during cremation with the way he’s looking at me. Like he sees someone that doesn’t exist anymore. That hasn’t existed for over twenty years. How dare he show up here and do this. How dare he show up here at all .

I crouch down, my hands trembling with fury as I untie the knot on the cleat, pushing the canoe away from the dock and hopping in as it starts to float away.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do this—whatever it is.

The feelings, the looks—the fucking looks that threaten to drown me high and dry without a single drop of water.

My hands shake as I pick up the paddle, digging the blade into the water with angry strokes.

“Scotty,” he pleads. When I don’t respond: “Scotty!”

I look over my shoulder at him. “Don’t ever look at me like that again.”

Then I’m gone, paddling away and leaving Ford Callahan on a dock in the middle of Lake Ledger as he shouts my name and angry tears drip down my face.

After he spent an afternoon ripping out a kitchen with me.

After he looked at me like he wanted to keep on looking.

After he ran away once and left me broken.

“Dammit, Scotty, don’t do this.” I can barely breathe over the sound of my name on his lips. But I don’t stop, and I definitely don’t look back.

Not when I hear the splash behind me.

Not when I hit the beachy shore and drag the canoe into the grass and drop the paddles next to his phone and keys.

Not when I march inside, toss his duffle and vest onto the porch, and lock the door.

Not when he’s on the porch, shouting my name and pounding on the door, apologizing for something I’m not sure I understand .

When he’s quiet, I peel myself from the door and look out the window. He’s standing fully clothed, soaking wet, and taking jagged breaths like he just swam across the lake. Because he did. Because I’m as broken and busted as this disaster of a house.

He stands directly in front of me, only the glass separating us, looking as wounded as my whole life has felt.

I want to smile, flip him off, and tell him to go to hell, but I have neither the words nor desire. Water drips down his face, clinging to the short stubble on his jaw and chin before dropping to the splintered wooden planks of the porch.

He presses one palm on the window and drops his forehead next to it, not breaking eye contact as his skin spreads against the surface of the glass like he’s been spilled there.

I stare at his hand. At his face. At him. I press my thumb to the glass opposite his palm. For a split second I wish I could be who he seems to think I am. That I’m at all capable of trying whatever this is.

Instead of going to him, apologizing, and telling him everything like I should, I drop my hand from the glass and walk away, hoping he sees that whatever he’s trying to do here is a waste of time.